The news is a war on our attention

Don’t read/watch the news. Skewed incentives. The news is a war on our attention. We are frightened of coming back to find out what else to be afraid of. This leads to availability bias and pessimism. Some of us are more afraid to fly than drive. Counteract the news with positive propaganda.

Not wanting something is as good as having it

Not wanting something is as good as having it. If you don’t want something, you’re just as satisfied as someone who has it. Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

Wisdom and good advice are everywhere

Wisdom and good advice are everywhere, now more than ever. The person who needs advice might not actually want advice. They might simply want reassurance. Reassurance that their instincts are right, that they and they alone are the ones that can make a difference. We don’t have an advice shortage. We have a gap in selection and application.

You are the easiest person to fool

Eventually, everyone loses the battle with willpower. The only question is when. Never fool yourself, and remember that you are the easiest person to fool.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act

The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.

When was the last time you thought of yourself as powerful?

We have an uncomfortable relationship with power. We see it in others, but we rarely ever associate it with ourselves. That's because we feel like we shouldn't want it. We're embarrassed to seek it out, and we'll use whatever euphemisms we can think of before we actually admit to anyone, "I want to have power." We think that makes us greedy, or narcissistic, so we let it be this elephant in the room that we never really talk about.

You will be interrupted, but you can choose to keep it brief.

Everyone gets distracted. In many ways, the real divide is between those who get back on track quickly and those who let interruptions expand into longer periods of inactivity.

Life presents an endless series of interruptions and distractions.

You will continually be pulled off course or asked to put out a fire created by someone else. People will disrespect your time and steal your attention—usually with no intention of malice, but simply because different people have different priorities.

Read the other side

Read the other side. Some of your fellow citizens have good reasons to believe something different than you do. I try to think sometimes about where are they right? Not are they wrong. You'll become a better thinker. And you earn peoples' respect. By telling the truth, being a team player. Team player doesn't mean you don't complain. It means you complain if we are doing something stupid.

You might not be trying well enough.

You usually succeed. You rarely feel like an imposter. You already know what you need to know. You’re confident it’s going to work- these are the clues that you might not be trying well enough.

Living life calmly isn’t always possible

Sometimes we need to be assertive, and alert to rapidly-changing situations. But for the most part, being calm isn’t a passive act. It is intentional. Calm people regularly commit and re-commit to a calm life. They rearrange their environments to maximize calm. They exert boundaries in their relationships to minimize stress.

We do not need to impress anyone

You provide real value, and you don’t even need to smile when administering your elixir.

Be genuine. Be real. Be valuable. That's it.

Conscientiously physically slower

When we slow down our movements and even how we talk physically, which we are all capable of doing, it’s like moving down a gear or two to match the speed of the present moment. Agitated people are often a gear or two too fast. As such, life comes at them very quickly and they have to do more to process everything.

Drip by drip makes a wave

We are primed to pay attention to things that happen in a thunderclap. But the events that change our culture often happen over time, distributed across parts of the population too small to notice. The first challenge is finding the focus and patience to work on the synchronized adoption of important ideas. And the second is to not sacrifice the larger goal in a frenzied hustle for the big break.

Embrace your freakery

After a while, most people stop being consistent because they begin to judge themselves as ‘weird.’ You’re consistent precisely because you aren’t normal. Embrace your freakery. Little good happens when you try to be like everyone else.

Do more

We have one life. We need to let go of the fear of annoying some people. It’s inevitable, but so is your genius. We are literally composed of the same creative energy that holds the moon in place. Why would you hold back?

Taking the first step

Taking the first step is the difference between actually pursuing your passion and just dreaming about it.

Systemic problems require systemic solutions

Systems almost never change voluntarily. They rarely change because some of the participants in the system decide that they would prefer new rules. Systems change when their inputs change and when the rules change. Every system we live with has already been altered by the needs of some of the people impacted by the system. As impacts grow, the number of people affected grows as well.

Making small changes to our questions

Making small changes to our questions can yield completely different answers. It all starts with reframing your approach so that you are not looking at the downside risk, but the upside opportunity.

We are bad at seeing our own blind spots

We are bad at seeing our own blind spots, and we have a difficult time looking at ourselves neutrally. This becomes a problem when we have to make an important or hard decision. When we can't see the flaws in our own judgment, we need to get an outside perspective. Start by finding somebody you trust, who has a good sense of who you are, and get their candid advice.

Identify your blind spots by talking to somebody who has distance from you. Talk off the top of your mind, without a script. Share your feelings in real-time. Then let them reflect on what they're hearing back from you. You may find that the answer suddenly becomes clear.

Prioritise light-heartedness

Even the people you envy are dealing with shit you don’t want. What happy people have in common is maintaining a continual need to keep things light. Most people are focused on their own miseries. Happy people transcend this and actively practice the art of light-heartedness.

Pick yourself up and move forward again

You will get days when you want to quit. But If you also want something better you have to push through, persevere, and believe in yourself and your journey. You can have a bad day, get a little discouraged, or even shed a tear. But then pick yourself up and move forward again.

The chase emphasizes the lack

A curious thing happens when we search for happiness: we become unhappy. If we’re knowingly pursuing the illusion of ‘happiness’, we are unwittingly communicating to ourselves that we’re - you guessed it - not happy. The chase emphasizes the lack.

Be ok with not knowing

Mostly no one knows what they’re doing. They may say they do, but they’re as in the dark as you are. I’m not kidding. The future doesn’t exist, and as humans, we wish it did, but it doesn’t. And that’s ok. Trying to pre-plan everything is destroying you. Stop. Be ok with not knowing. Chuckle to yourself at the futility of wishing things were different. You can’t change what can’t be changed, so why do you presume to have magical powers no one else has?

There are always more options

There are always more options. If exploring them is the goal, please explore. And sometimes, the unavailable can lead to a breakthrough. But if the job is to simply get the work done, it might be worth pretending that the unexplored options don’t even exist.

Most of what we encounter is driven by emotions

Most of what we encounter is driven by emotions, and our emotions are always relative. When we’re shopping for a car or an orange, we’re buying the way it makes us feel, not how it would make someone else feel.

When we give away our day

Sooner or later, they’re all finite. And the way we allocate our time and emotional energy determine what gets done... There’s generally a gulf between what we say we did all day and what we actually did. When we give away our day, we give away our future.

You cannot control most outcomes in life

There are many situations in life you do not control, but you often contribute to them.

I cannot control the rain, but I can control my clothing.

I cannot control your feelings, but I can control my kindness.

I cannot control my opponent, but I can control my response.

You cannot control most outcomes in life, but you can usually influence them. Releasing your attachment to the results does not mean releasing your responsibility for the situation.

Make sure that mountain is worth climbing.

Do not confuse things that are hard with things that are valuable. Many things in life are hard. Just because you are giving a great effort does not mean you are working toward a great result. Make sure that mountain is worth climbing.

Speaking up is a skill like any other

Speaking up is a skill like any other. It can be learned. Yes, some people are born with a stronger affinity for it than you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve. With practice, you will surprise yourself with how confident you become.

If you want advantageous divergence

The longer the time frame for results, the less you need intensity and the more you need consistency. Consistency isn't simply willpower, which comes and goes. Consistency is doing it when you don't feel like doing it. If you want advantageous divergence, you have to do the things that matter on your best day and your worst day.